Chicken & waffles rises at new restaurant in Dallas' Mockingbird Station

Chicken & waffles tally rises at new restaurant in Mockingbird Station

A restaurant in Mockingbird Station has closed, sad. But a new one will spring up from its ashes, yay.

Mezze Tapas, which was doing Mediterranean food, is closing and will be replaced by a more casual spot called Brined Southern Kitchen, with an opening slated for early summer.

Located on the street level in front of the Angelika Film Center, Brined is owned by the same team that owned Mezze, as well as Edith's French Bistro, another restaurant at Mockingbird Station. They're a busy group: They're also doing Porcino, the organic restaurant in Addison, which is set to open in mid-April.

Spokesman Bardi Faizy says that Mezze was doing well enough but wasn't quite the right fit for Mockingbird Station, unlike Edith's which is bonkers with the hour-long waits on weekends, especially at brunch.

"With Mezze, we envisioned a true Mediterranean restaurant, with an idea to give people at Mockingbird Station a place to hang out," Faizy says. "People who ate there loved it. But you have people coming in after a movie or before a movie who maybe didn't understand the menu, and they didn't stay to eat."

Brined will be more of a quick read. They're remodeling the space to give it an "elegant farmhouse" look and rolling out the upscale fried chicken.

"We feel like a Southern menu will be more successful here," he says. "We'll be doing deviled eggs, chicken and biscuits, chicken and waffles, some steaks, a normal chicken sandwich, a pastrami sandwich. We'll cure all our meat in-house, just like we did at Mezze, and we'll have the seafood bowl from Mezze, which was our biggest hit."

They'll also do some of the same dishes on the menu at Porcino, creating synchronicity between the two locations. If you like what you had at Addison, you can get it in Dallas, too.

"Probably 40 percent of the menu at Porcino, we'll do at Brined," he says.